1. pointed out (quite reasonably) that moving any plant in August in Houston is really dumb, and

2. planting a rose right at the base of a crepe myrtle tree is really dumb too.

I didn’t care. I wanted to do it and it was MY garden. The spirit was moving. The spirit might not move at the “right” time.

Besides, I was fascinated by a program at Mercer Arboretum & Botanic Gardens during which Peggy Martin showed slides of how she allows her (many) rambling roses to climb up nearby ornamental trees. They seem to co-exist wonderfully, Peggy said.

I immediately went home and, because Bill was out of town, moved an irritatingly-vigorous rambler (that seldom bloomed) from the front yard to the back next to said crepe myrtle.

The rose died. Or so I thought.

I saw no sign of life and the stalks began turning brown. One or two stalks retained a little green which kept hope alive. No leaves ever appeared.

Hope springs eternal. I bury kitchen wastes right into my gardens. Every compost pile I’ve ever started is soon a mass of poison ivy sprouts.

(Obviously the depths ‘neath our feet are a tangled mass of poison ivy vines and trumpet vines. Ignore any spot for any length of time and one or both of these noxious vines will quickly appear.)

I continually buried kitchen wastes there thinking I’d attract lots of earthworms who would make the soil so fertile that rose wouldn’t dare die.

A few more branches turned brown.

Then it got cold and I quit checking.

Today I walked by and would you believe? The few remaining green stalks are covered with little sprouting leaf clusters!

Wish I knew what kind of rose it is. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it bloom, I can’t even remember the color.

Hope it likes crepe myrtle trunks.

Never heard of “crepe murder”? Log on Wednesday and find out if you’re guilty.

5 Responses

The climbing & very beautiful rose that will not die, but will eat YOU if given half a chance, is New Dawn. It bit me at the nursery putting into the car, again putting it into the car, on taking it out, and planting it, she got me several times.It was in the wrong place originally (about a day), so I moved it yet again (numerous opportunities to bite, and she grabbed each and every one!)to the east side of the porch. It is protected from north wind in an ell, and gets sun a lot of the day, most indirect.

The thing is that is not a great location because of water, coming off the end of the roof, and flowing from the north (higher ground), seeking the drainage ditch sometimes quite rapidly. The rose has been through a major hurricane (Rita) and several small ones, plus floods too numerous to mention. She sat, completely neglected, for the almost two years we were out of our home & in NETX.

Chopped her almost to the ground on returning after Rita, as there was absolutely no other choice. I carelessly cut off any branch which offends any time of the year and last year cut her back in September to paint the porch. If you think she cares, you would be mighty wrong! She came right back, and was covered with buds and partly open roses when the ice hit us.

Eventually, I cut those off, because they never opened. She is now magnificent once again! I bought 10 new roses last year & managed to find too soggy locations for most of them. Half of them turned up their toes and died, even after I realized they were too wet & moved them.

All of the roses that lived are heirloom selections: New Dawn, Carefree Beauty (don’t like the color, but the blooms are huge) Mutabilis (Butterfly Rose), which I love,ordered from the antique Rose Emporium; a deep purple, whose name escapes me, etc.

I also planted 30 hedge roses, which are indestructible unless the roots stand in water too long. They will give you a strong warning, leaves turning bright yellow, which gives you many chances to cut them down and move them. But die they will if not moved. I don’t, because of their propagation by root spread habit. There just aren’t a lot of places in my landscape for that sort of rose. I have now turned the hedge all the way across the front to mixed use.

When the crawfish come through the clay to my enriched bed, tunnel up under a hedge rose, water standing an inch from the surface, that particular place collapses, and the rose dies. I dig or leave it, fill with rocks, raise it back up and plant anything else with more shallow roots, which will tolerate the occasional flood.

Ah, what an adventure retirement has become; life with roses in SWLA, after 65 years without them while living & working in my native habitat, east Texas, north to south!

“Bootsand Mama” lives in Soutwest Louisiana. But heed her advice. I’ve always maintained that here in the Greater Houston area, we are far FAR closer in ecology to southern Louisiana than we are to Central or West Texas (from whence most of our commercially-available native landscape plants come). Brenda